character information
THE BASICS
NAME: Urick
CANON SOURCE: Drakengard 2
CANON POINT: post-death
AGE: 27 28
BIRTHDATE: 22nd July
GENDER: male
SEXUALITY: heterosexual
HEIGHT: 6'1'' (185cm)
WEIGHT:
BUILD: broad, muscular
EYES: grey
HAIR: white, chin-length, wavy
DEXTERITY: favours left (previously right)
PERSONALITY
Urick was a well-liked individual and a popular member of the Knights of the Seal, and indeed he has something of a magnetic personality that makes it easy to see why. When he was younger, he suffered from overwhelming arrogance that his own foolishness eventually proved to be misplaced. While he matured with age, he still has a cocky air about him on occasion, although now it’s more of an act than any real amount of ego. Light-hearted and friendly almost without fail, Urick has a reputation for being something of a joker, and a flirt. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have a serious side-in fact, he’s actually rather no-nonsense when the situation calls for it-but he won’t let a tough situation sully his good humour, even though that humour seems to have turned dry and sometimes rather sardonic with age. Where others flounder, Urick remains cool and laid-back, and while he won’t go so far as to seriously make light of an issue, he’s certainly not above joking about it.
It would be easy to look at Urick and say that he’s a simple man, and that the “joker” is the entirety of his personality, but that’s far from true. His confident, jovial personality is an act, and always has been. It hides a deep cowardice that Urick can’t escape. This is the cowardice that caused him to falter and left him mortally wounded and helpless before Caim, during his attack on the District of Shining Life. This is the cowardice that made him flee, leaving Oror-his General and mentor, and the man who saved his life-to die. This is the cowardice that pushed him to make a Pact with the Reaper, because he was too afraid to face death, and hide himself away for three years, because he was too afraid to face his own guilt.
His yellow streak isn’t only evidenced on the battlefield, however. Urick has always been the type to run from his problems, to avoid having to deal with them- burying his head in the sand, as it were. His relationship with Yaha is a good example. Instead of being honest and dealing with the issue, Urick took to avoiding it; ignoring it, laughing it off, playing innocent. When that proved to not be enough to discourage Yaha, Urick instead started trying to avoid him altogether, discarding their friendship entirely rather than having to face an uncomfortable truth.
Urick, then, is a man shouldering a huge burden of guilt and regret, but he’s also unfailingly selfish. He hates himself for his cowardice and for the harm he’s caused to friends because of it… but he’s self-pitying at the same time. He seems to believe that living with his guilt has been punishment enough, and that his death will make amends- but really, it could easily be seen that seeking death is only running away once more… And after everything, he was perfectly happy to take advantage of Nowe to have the boy kill him, though things did not turn out that way in the end.
WEAPONS AND ABILITIES
WEAPON: Although Urick’s various weapons are referred to as axes in-game, his original weapon actually resembles a short-handled scythe with a huge, wickedly curved blade. While it’s a difficult weapon to handle, and has a weakness is its rather short range, it’s still deadly in Urick’s hands, capable of wide sweeping attacks that can easily slice through the toughest of monster hides.
The scythe-like axe had once been commissioned by a king who had wished to live forever, and used to sacrifice many hundreds of beautiful young men to appease the Reaper. For the first ceremony, the king chose two men and ordered one to sacrifice the other. Every month, he would choose a new executioner to sacrifice the last. This continued until the month of his one hundred and fiftieth birthday. The pair involved in the ceremony were best friends, and when one had sacrificed the other, he turned crying to the king, and told him he would follow his friend into the afterlife. He cut off his own head, and the axe pierced the altar so deeply that none could remove it. The king’s long life ended then.
The axe finally found its way into Urick’s hands, where once again it provides sacrifices to the Reaper. The cycle of blood which curses the blade can never be halted- a secret known only to the Reaper himself.
ABILITIES: As a (former) District Guardian for the Knights of the Seal, Urick is one of the Knights’ elite members. Already a skilled soldier, his Pact with the Reaper (which will be explained in more detail below) provided him with power beyond that of any normal human, and indeed he’s brutally strong and a deadly adversary in battle. His weapon also allows him the use of magic: a spell known as “Deadly Fang”, which causes dark fangs to slice up through the earth and tear his enemies apart.
His most significant ability is the result of his Pact, though it’s not a power that he gained, but rather the price he had to pay. Simply put, his Pact cost him the ability to die. Should he be killed, the Reaper will just enter his body to resurrect him. Of course, Pact Partners are tied to each other in life and death, so it’s theoretically possible to kill him by killing the Reaper… However, the Reaper doesn’t fight, and as a spirit of death, is invulnerable until it joins with Urick’s body. It’s an extremely small window of vulnerability… and unless they were explicitly aware of it beforehand, one that most would never think to exploit.
It's also mentioned that those with a Pact can communicate with their Pact-beasts over long distances with a form of telepathy. Other Pact Partners can sense and listen in on these conversations with ease, and can sense the locations of any who have entered into a Pact. These are, however, limited by distance, though it's doubtful that Siren's Port is large enough to have distance be a serious limiting factor.
BACKGROUND
[TO BE ADDED: Orphaned in the war between the Union and the Empire. In an orphanage by age nine. Met Yaha in this orphanage. Yaha was the only elf there and ostracised or treated cruelly by the other kids. Urick was the only one who was nice to him. Left the orphanage around age 14(possibly younger??) to join the Knights of the Seal, and Yaha followed him.
The following was written a year and a half ago and so is in desperate need of updating.]
A member of the Knights of the Seal from the a young age, Urick was a promising talent, but arrogant. When General Oror adopted Nowe and brought him into the Knights, the young dragon child who was heralded as a “saviour” began to quickly rise through the ranks. Urick, unhappy with the thought of this feral child attaining a higher rank than him, challenged the boy to a duel… and lost miserably. Humiliated, and finally realising his own lack of competence for being defeated by a child nine years younger than himself, Urick began to mature.
Urick ultimately befriended Nowe and came to be like a big brother figure to him-one of very few people who treated him as a human instead of a saviour or worse, an animal-teasing him mercilessly but also training with him frequently. After his defeat at the hands of the dragon child, Urick worked hard to improve himself. General Oror-nicknamed the Iron Dragon-a role model for many of the soldiers who was known for his integrity and strength, became his both his mentor, and the goal he strove to reach. His training eventually paid off, and Urick was promoted to lieutenant under the authority of General Oror.
At some point, perhaps because of Urick’s friendship, Yaha fell in love with him. While at first Yaha was unwilling to risk ruining their friendship by admitting as much, Urick eventually caught on… and pretended that he hadn’t. Any allusions to it, whether subtle or otherwise, he ignored, or laughed off. When Yaha made a Pact with the Gnomes, he came to find Urick, intending to finally make him his, whether or not Urick consented. Using the power given to him by his pact, he hypnotised Urick in order to force himself on him. But it was Urick’s cowardice, and not his strength of will, which allowed him to break free of Yaha’s spell. Panicked, Urick distanced himself from Yaha, discarding their friendship entirely rather than having to face the man who was so desperate for love that he couldn’t give. Doubtlessly, Urick knew that it was his own actions that had broken Yaha, but he struggled to balance his guilt with his feelings of revulsion.
Urick was twenty four on the fateful day that the one-eyed man, Caim, attacked the District of Shining Life. Caim wished to free the Goddess, whose very existence sealed the power of the Gods and prevented them from bringing ruin upon the world- the red dragon, his Pact Partner. The dragon had been driven mad by the weight of the Seal. The Districts were the seals that kept the dragon locked away, now also protecting the world from the Goddess who should have been its protector. Only by destroying the districts could the dragon be freed so that Caim might be with her once more.
Caim massacred Urick’s platoon without breaking a sweat. Mortally wounded, Urick was frozen in fear, unable to fight. General Oror intervened, fighting a desperate battle against the one-eyed man to protect his young lieutenant, but he had been weakened by poison slipped him by the treacherous Gismor, who was bitter that a man without a Pact-and such a foolish idealist at that-outranked him. Urick, terrified of death, made a Pact to escape it, with the creature of the District- the Reaper. Too much a coward to take on Caim, Urick fled from the District, leaving Oror to die. Ashamed of his own actions, he knew he could never return to the Knights after what he had done, and so simply disappeared.
Having lost his sword in the District of Shining Life, Urick took up a weapon far more suited to the Pact Partner of the Reaper, and wore a skull-like helmet to hide his face. For three years he hid himself away, a coward with only his burden of guilt for company, his life itself his torment. The death he had so feared and fought to escape had become a far-off promise of peace.
When he met Nowe and Manah in the City of Rust, after saving them from bounty hunters, he finally saw a chance to atone. Nowe had abandoned the Knights and become a traitor after the now General Gismor had attempted to kill him as he had done General Oror. He and Manah were travelling to destroy the Districts to free the people who were being sacrificed to maintain the seals, Manah unwittingly repeating her own crimes from eighteen years ago, when she had been a puppet of the Watchers and had almost brought about the world’s end. Urick chose to join them, travelling with them to the Districts, but he wasn’t really concerned by the peoples’ misery or the sacrifices, and neither did he care what would happen should the seals be broken. Their quest was nothing but a means to an end for him, knowing that should he follow them, he would eventually run into the one-eyed man once again.
Travelling first to the District of Precious Light, Urick was forced to face one source of his guilt, as the Guardian of the District was none other than Yaha. Most likely because of Urick’s presence, Yaha allowed them in. The elf also stood back from the fight, allowing his Pact Partners-the Gnomes-to fight for him, and planning to leave Urick alive while slaughtering the others. Throughout the battle, Urick still pointedly ignored everything that Yaha said to him, his attitude toward his former friend unusually cold in contrast to his normal jovial façade. It was Urick who landed the final blow, slaying the Guardian, and Yaha finally confessed his love openly, telling Urick how happy he was to have been able to see him once more, and promising never to forget him. If Urick was saddened by his old friend’s death, he hid it well, though he did express regret at how things had had to turn out, saying that perhaps if it weren’t for Yaha’s Pact, they would have still remained friends even now.
On the way to the District of Shining Life, the group encountered Caim, and Urick stopped to fight him while Nowe went after the soldiers who had captured Manah. Urick even went so far as as to beg Caim for death. It was unclear whether Caim actually did kill him or not, though from Urick’s odd behaviour afterwards he may well have done, and simply not stuck around long enough to kill the Reaper, too. Urick only told Nowe that he had lost track of Caim, saying nothing of the events of the battle.
After rescuing Manah from the Grand Shrine, they returned to the District of Shining Life, which was already under attack by Caim. Following Caim to the Dais, it was finally revealed that Urick was the Guardian of the District. Urick explained to Nowe that he was nothing but a coward who had left Oror to die three years ago, and also told him how he could be killed permanently- by slaying the Reaper while it was inside his body. Nowe refused to allow Caim to kill Urick, taking the man on himself in a desperate bid to protect his friend.
Nowe fought valiantly, but at the last moment, Urick threw himself between the boy and Caim to save him from a mortal blow, which flung him half-way across the room. Urick was killed, but resurrected by the Reaper. Still unsteady on his feet and not fully healed, Urick advanced on Caim, weaponless, taking blow after blow until the Reaper, too, was slain. With an expression of triumph, Urick forced Caim backwards off the edge of the Dais, into a deep chasm, saving Nowe’s life, though it did not kill Caim.
Believing he had finally atoned for his past sins, Urick died with no regrets in Nowe’s arms, and another seal was broken…